HMS Ulysses Read online

  Engage that was the next step. Sometimes the enemy came to you, more often you had to go after him. And then, one thing alone mattered speed.

  The Ulysses was tremendously fast. Quadruple screws powered by four great Parsons single-reduction geared turbines two in the for'ard, two in the after engine-room, developed an unbelievable horse-power that many a battleship, by no means obsolete, could not match. Officially, she was rated at 33.5 knots. Off Arraa, in her full-power trials, bows lifting out of the water, stern dug in like a hydroplane, vibrating in every Clyde-built rivet, and with the tortured, seething water boiling whitely ten feet above the level of the poop-deck, she had covered the measured mile at an incredible 39.2 knots, the nautical equivalent of 45 m.p.h. And the "Dude "-Engineer-Commander Dobson had smiled knowingly, said he wasn't half trying and just wait till the Abdiel or the Manxman came along, and he'd show them something. But as these famous mine-laying cruisers were widely believed to be capable of 44 knots, the wardroom had merely sniffed "Professional jealousy "and ignored him.

  Secretly, they were as proud of the great engines as Dobson himself.

  Locate, engage and destroy. Destruction. That was the be all, the end all. Lay the enemy along the sights and destroy him. The Ulysses was well equipped for that also.

  She had four twin gun-turrets, two for'ard, two aft, 5.25 quick-firing and dual-purpose equally effective against surface targets and aircraft. These were controlled from the Director Towers, the main one for'ard, just above and abaft of the bridge, the auxiliary aft. From these towers, all essential data about bearing, wind-speed, drift, range, own speed, enemy speed, respective angles of course were fed to the giant electronic computing tables in the Transmitting Station, the fighting heart of the ship, situated, curiously enough, in the very bowels of the Ulysses, deep below the water-line, and thence automatically to the turrets as two simple factors, elevation and training. The turrets, of course, could also fight independently.

  These were the main armament. The remaining guns were purely AA, the batteries of multiple pom-poms, firing two-pounders in rapid succession, not particularly accurate but producing a blanket curtain sufficient to daunt any enemy pilot, and isolated clusters of twin Oerlikons, high-precision, high-velocity weapons, vicious and deadly in trained hands.

  Finally, the Ulysses carried her depth-charges and torpedoes, 36 charges only, a negligible number compared to that carried by many corvettes and destroyers, and the maximum number that could be dropped in one pattern was six. But one depth-charge carries 450 lethal pounds of Amatol, and the Ulysses had destroyed two U-boats during the preceding winter. The 21-inch torpedoes, each with its 750-pound warhead of T.N.T., lay sleek and menacing, in the triple tubes on the main deck, one set on either side of the after funnel. These had not yet been blooded.

  This, then, was the Ulysses. The complete, the perfect fighting machine, man's ultimate, so far, in his attempt to weld science and savagery into an instrument of destruction. The perfect fighting machine, but only so long as it was manned and serviced by a perfectly integrating, smoothly functioning team. A ship, any ship, can never be better than its crew. And the crew of the Ulysses was disintegrating, breaking up: the lid was clamped on the volcano, but the rumblings never ceased.

  The first signs of further trouble came within three hours of clearing harbour. As always, minesweepers swept the channel ahead of them, but, as always, Vallery left nothing to chance. It was one of the reasons why he, and the Ulysses, had survived thus far. At 0620 he streamed paravanes, the slender, torpedo-shaped bodies which angled out from the bows, one on either side, on special paravane wire. In theory, the wires connecting mines to their moorings on the floor of the sea were deflected away from the ship, guided out to the paravanes themselves and severed by cutters: the mines would then float to the top to be exploded or sunk by small arms.

  At 0900, Vallery ordered the paravanes to be recovered. The Ulysses slowed down. The First Lieutenant, Lieutenant-Commander Carrington, went to the fo'c'sle to supervise operations: seamen, winch drivers, and the Subs, in charge of either side closed up to their respective stations.

  Quickly, the recovery booms were freed from their angled crutches, just abaft the port and starboard lights, swung out and rigged with recovery wires. Immediately, the three-ton winches on 'B' gun-deck took the strain, smoothly, powerfully; the paravanes cleared the water.

  Then it happened. It was A.B. Ferry's fault that it happened. And it was just ill-luck that the port winch was suspect, operating on a power circuit with a defective breaker, just ill-luck that Ralston was the winch driver, a taciturn, bitter mouthed Ralston to whom, just then, nothing mattered a damn, least of all what he said and did. But it was Carslake's responsibility that the affair developed into what it did.

  Sub-Lieutenant Carslake's presence there, on top of the Carley floats', directing the handling of the port wire, represented the culmination of a series of mistakes. A mistake on the part of his father, Rear-Admiral, Rtd., who had seen in his son a man of his own calibre, had dragged him out of Cambridge in 1939 at the advanced age of twenty-six and practically forced him into the Navy: a weakness on the part of his first C.O., a corvette captain who had known his father and recommended him as a candidate for a commission: a rare error of judgment on the part of the selection board of the King Alfred, who had granted him his commission ; and a temporary lapse on the part of the Commander, who had assigned him to this duty, in spite of Carslake's known incompetence and inability to handle men.

  He had the face of an overbred racehorse, long, lean and narrow, with prominent pale blue eyes and protruding upper teeth. Below his scanty fair hair, his eyebrows were arched in a perpetual question mark: beneath the long, pointed nose, the supercilious curl of the upper lip formed the perfect complement to the eyebrows. His speech was a shocking caricature of the King's English: his short vowels were long, his long ones interminable: his grammar was frequently execrable. He resented the Navy, he resented his long overdue promotion to Lieutenant, he resented the way the men resented him. In brief, Sub-Lieutenant Carslake was the quintessence of the worst by-product of the English public school system. Vain, superior, uncouth and ill-educated, he was a complete ass.

  He was making an ass of himself now. Striving to maintain balance on the rafts, feet dramatically braced at a wide angle, he shouted unceasing, unnecessary commands at his men. C.P.O. Hartley groaned aloud, but kept otherwise silent in the interests of discipline. But A.B. Ferry felt himself under no such restraints.

  "'Ark at his Lordship," he murmured to Ralston. "All for the Skipper's benefit." He nodded at where Vallery was leaning over the bridge, twenty feet above Carslake's head. "Impresses him no end, so his nibs reckons."

  "Just you forget about Carslake and keep your eyes on that wire,"

  Ralston advised. "And take these damned great gloves off. One of these days------"

  "Yes, yes, I know," Ferry jeered. "The wire's going to snag 'em and wrap me round the drum." He fed in the hawser expertly. "Don't you worry, chum, it's never going to happen to me."

  But it did. It happened just then. Ralston, watching the swinging paravane closely, flicked a glance inboard. He saw the broken strand inches from Ferry, saw it hook viciously into the gloved hand and drag him towards the spinning drum before Ferry had a chance to cry out.

  Ralston's reaction was immediate. The foot-brake was only six inches away but that was too far. Savagely he spun the control wheel, full ahead to full reverse in a split second. Simultaneously with Ferry's cry of pain as his forearm crushed against the lip of the drum came a muffled explosion and clouds of acrid smoke from the winch as œ500 worth of electric motor burnt out in a searing flash.

  Immediately the wire began to run out again, accelerating momentarily under the dead weight of the plunging paravane. Ferry went with it.

  Twenty feet from the winch the wire passed through a snatch block on the deck: if Ferry was lucky, he might lose only his hand.

  He was less
than four feet away when Ralston's foot stamped viciously on the brake. The racing drum screamed to a shuddering stop, the paravane crashed down into the sea and the wire, weightless now, swung idly to the rolling of the ship.

  Carslake scrambled down off the Carley, his sallow face suffused with anger. He strode up to Ralston.

  "You bloody fool!" he mouthed furiously. "You've lost us that paravane.

  By God, L.T.O., you'd better explain yourself! Who the hell gave you orders to do anything?"

  Ralston's mouth tightened, but he spoke civilly enough.

  "Sorry, sir. Couldn't help it, it had to be done. Ferry's arm------"

  "To hell with Ferry's arm!" Carslake was almost screaming with rage.

  "I'm in charge here and I give the orders. Look! Look!" He pointed to the swinging wire. "Your work, Ralston, you, you blundering idiot! It's gone, gone, do you understand, gone!"

  Ralston looked over the side with an air of large surprise.

  "Well, now, so it is." The eyes were bleak, the tone provocative, as he looked back at Carslake and patted the winch. "And don't forget this, it's gone too, and it costs a ruddy sight more than any paravane."

  "I don't want any of your damned impertinence!" Carslake shouted. His mouth was working, his voice shaking with passion. "What you need is to have some discipline knocked into you and, by God, I'm going to see you get it, you insolent young bastard!"

  Ralston flushed darkly. He took one quick step forward, his fist balled, then relaxed heavily as the powerful hands of C.P.O. Hartley caught his swinging arm. But the damage was done now. There was nothing for it but the bridge.

  Vallery listened calmly, patiently, as Carslake made his outraged report. He felt far from patient. God only knew, he thought wearily, he had more than enough to cope with already. But the unruffled professional mask of detachment gave no hint of his feelings.

  "Is this true, Ralston?" he asked quietly, as Carslake finished his tirade. "You disobeyed orders, swore at the Lieutenant and insulted him?"

  "No, sir." Ralston sounded as weary as the Captain felt. "It's not true." He looked at Carslake, his face expressionless, then turned back to the Captain. "I didn't disobey orders-there were none. Chief Petty Officer Hartley knows that." He nodded at the burly impassive figure who had accompanied them to the bridge. "I didn't swear at him. I hate to sound like a sea-lawyer, sir, but there are plenty of witnesses that Sub-Lieutenant Carslake swore at me-several times. And if I insulted him", he smiled faintly, "it was pure self-defence."

  "This is no place for levity, Ralston." Vallery's voice was cold. He was puzzled-the boy baffled him. The bitterness, the brittle composure, he could understand these; but not the flickering humour. "As it happens, I saw the entire incident. Your promptness, your resource, saved that rating's arm, possibly even his life, and against that a lost paravane and wrecked winch are nothing." Carslake whitened at the implied rebuke. "I'm grateful for that, thank you. As for the rest, Commander's Defaulters tomorrow morning. Carry on, Ralston."

  Ralston compressed his lips, looked at Vallery for a long moment, then saluted abruptly and left the bridge.

  Carslake turned round appealingly.

  "Captain, sir..." He stopped at the sight of Vallery's upraised hand.

  "Not now, Carslake. We'll discuss it later." He made no attempt to conceal the dislike in his voice. "You may carry on, Lieutenant.

  Hartley, a word with you."

  Hartley stepped forward. Forty-four years old, C.P.O. Hartley was the Royal Navy at its best. Very tough, very kindly and very competent, he enjoyed the admiration of all, ranging from the vast awe of the youngest Ordinary Seaman to the warm respect of the Captain himself. They had been together from the beginning.

  "Well, Chief, let's have it. Between ourselves."

  "Nothing to it really, sir." Hartley shrugged. "Ralston did a fine job. Sub-Lieutenant Carslake lost his head. Maybe Ralston was a bit sassy, but he was provoked. He's only a kid, but he's a professional, and he doesn't like being pushed around by amateurs." Hartley paused and looked up at the sky. "Especially bungling amateurs."

  Vallery smothered a smile.

  "Could that be interpreted as - er, a criticism, Chief?"

  "I suppose so, sir." He nodded forward.

  A few ruffled feathers down there, sir. Men are pretty sore about this. Shall I-----?"

  "Thanks, Chief. Play it down as much as possible."

  When Hartley had gone, Vallery turned to Tyndall. "Well, you heard it, sir? Another straw in the wind."

  "A straw?" Tyndall was acid. "Hundreds of straws. More like a bloody great cornstack... Find out who was outside my door last night?"

  During the middle watch, Tyndall had heard an unusual scraping noise outside the wardroom entry to his day cabin, had gone to investigate himself: in his hurry to reach the door, he'd knocked a chair over, and seconds later he had heard a clatter and the patter of running feet in the passage outside; but, when he had thrown the door open, the passage had been empty. Nothing there, nothing at all, except a file on the deck, below the case of Navy Colt.445s; the chain on the trigger guards was almost through. Vallery shook his head.

  "No idea at all, sir." His face was heavy with worry. "Bad, really bad."

  Tyndall shivered in an icy flurry. He grinned crookedly. "Real Captain Teach stuff, eh? Pistols and cutlasses and black eye-patches, storming the bridge..." Vallery shook his head impatiently. "No, not that.

  You know it, sir. Defiance, maybe, but, well, no more. The point is, a marine is on guard at the keyboard, just round the corner of that passage. Night and day. Bound to have seen him. He denies-----"

  "The rot has gone that far?" Tyndall whistled softly. "A black day, Captain. What does our fire-eating young Captain of Marines say to that?"

  "Foster? Pooh-poohs the very idea, and just about twists the ends of his moustache off. Worried to hell. So's Evans, his Colour-Sergeant."

  "So am I!" said Tyndall feelingly. He glared into space. The Officer of the Watch, who happened to be in his direct line of vision, shifted uncomfortably. "Wonder what old Socrates thinks of it all, now? Maybe only a pill-roller, but the wisest head we've got... Well, speak of the devil!"

  The gate had just swung open, and a burly, unhappy-looking figure, duffel-coated, oilskinned and wearing a Russian beaverskin helmet, the total effect was of an elderly grizzly bear caught in a thunderstorm, shuffled across the duck boards of the bridge. He brought up facing the Kent screen, an inset, circular sheet of glass which revolved at high speed and offered a clear view in all weather conditions, rain, hail, snow. For half a minute he peered miserably through this and obviously didn't like what he saw.

  He sniffed loudly and turned away, beating his arms against the cold.

  "Ha! A deck officer on the bridge of H.M. Cruisers. The romance, the glamour! Hal" He hunched his oilskinned shoulders, and looked more miserable than ever. "No place this for a civilised man like myself. But you know how it is, gentlemen, the clarion call of duty..."

  Tyndall chuckled.

  "Give him plenty of time, Captain. Slow starters, these medics, you know, but------"

  Brooks cut in, voice and face suddenly serious.

  "Some more trouble, Captain. Couldn't tell it over the phone. Don't know how much it's worth."

  "Trouble?" Vallery broke off, coughed harshly into his handkerchief.

  "Sorry," he apologised. "Trouble? There's nothing else, old chap. Just had some ourselves."

  "That bumptious young fool, Carslake? Oh, I know all right. My spies are everywhere. Bloke's a bloody menace... However, my story. Young Nicholls was doing some path, work late last night in the dispensary, on T.B. specimens. Two, three hours in there. Lights out in the bay, and the patients either didn't know or had forgotten he was there. Heard Stoker Riley, a real trouble-maker, that Riley, and the others planning a locked door, sit-down strike in the boiler-room when they return to duty. A sit-down strike in a boiler-room. Good lord, it's fantastic! Anyway, Nicholls le
t it slide, pretended he hadn't heard."

  "What!" Vallery's voice was sharp, edged with anger. "And Nicholls ignored it, didn't report it to me! Happened last night, you say. Why wasn't I told, immediately? Get Nicholls up here, now. No, never mind." He reached out to pick up the bridge phone. "I'll get him myself."

  Brooks laid a gauntieted hand on Vallery's arm.

  "I wouldn't do that, sir. Nicholls is a smart boy, very smart indeed. He knew that if he let the men know they had been overheard, they would know that he must report it to you. And then you'd have been bound to take action, and open provocation of trouble is the last thing you want. You said so yourself in the wardroom last night."

  Vallery hesitated. "Yes, yes, of course I said that, but, Well, Doc., this is different. It could be a focal point for spreading the idea to------"

  "I told you, sir," Brooks interrupted softly. "Johnny Nicholls is a very smart boy. He's got a big notice, in huge red letters, outside the Sick Bay door: 'Keep clear: Suspected scarlet fever infection.' Kills me to watch 'em. Everybody avoids the place like the plague. Not a hope of communicating with their pals in the Stokers' Mess."

  Tyndall guffawed at him, and even Vallery smiled slightly.

  "Sounds fine, Doc. Still, I should have been told last night."

  "Why should you be woken up and told every little thing in the middle of the night?" Brooks's voice was brusque. "Sheer selfishness on my part, but what of it? When things get bad, you damn' well carry this ship on your back, and when we've all got to depend on you, we can't afford to have you anything less than as fit as possible. Agreed, Admiral?"